A/N: Thanks to everyone who reads, reviews, favourites or follows this story, discusses with me or is in any other way along for the ride. Thanks also to Leara Bribage who smoothed over my non-native english
Again, I will have to issue a warning for this chapter: It's an evil man doing even more disturbing things than last time I warned you about him. Nothing for the rating to go up though. It's all in your head and mine...
So... what do we think... do we pass the 100 reviews with this chapter?
Reads as: comments appreciated!
Chapter 29: Daughters of constant shadow
"And yet we are the same in many ways. We are all the sum of our tears. Too little, and the ground is not fertile, and nothing can grow there. Too much, the best of us is washed away. My rains have come and gone... for now. Yours are just beginning."
"I will make you a work of art…"
The whisper found its way into the darkness that had clouded her mind like a merciful blanket.
She had passed the last hours drifting in and out of consciousness, shifting between the worlds, between half-sleep and half-wake, in that particular state that belongs to those specters and ghosts that are truest and closest to the heart.
It was also a state where everything seems clear and nothing seemed real.
And the whisper did not even sound like a threat. It had a fond ring to it, the tone a father might use on a child; or a lover on his love.
For a moment, she imagined her father, back at the inn, a proud hand on her head, a smile on his face.
For a moment, she imagined Marius.
But all of this felt wrong – felt somewhat slightly off-kilter, the fabric of the dream rippling and shifting at the thought. Images were fleeting, chasing one another, and scenarios mingled and mixed, and as soon as thought had surfaced, it was gone again.
The phrase, for some reason of its own, remained.
Éponine thought this a wondrous thing, an item of marvel, and stopped to consider; but thought slipped through her fingers again, and the tide pulled her in. Like clouds on a stormy sky, patterns changed and shifted, and there was nothing solid in the world.
Except for the touch on her arm, as soft as a feather, as sharp as a knife – a touch like Montparnasse had once done, in the short fragment of happiness that they had shared, in the time that he had almost seemed like the boy he once was.
A memory of his smile drifted across her vision, and she felt regret, deep regret. They had been so young. And now, they were so old…
For a moment, she wondered, if it made sense to both feel the touch of his younger self and mourn the hardening of what he once had been, but then she decided that it did, because this was a strange world and dreams were real.
A hush on her forehead, a deep, deep breath, and Eponine was reminded of long, warm nights under the cover of thick sheets – sleep, my beauty, you played the day away – in a world where everything was warm, and sunbeams knew nothing of the dragons that hid just out of reach.
She shivered as the breath burned through her forehead, the breath of a dragon, the fire of a beast. Like a princess in a tower she had been watched and caught, but there was no prince in her life… there was no light. She was surrounded by nothing, and her dreams were full of ghosts.
"I will make you my testimony…"
The voice again, the maybe-not Marius, the maybe-not father, and her mind supplied a thousand situations, a thousand possibilities, but her father would never use that word, and Marius, dear Marius would never say this to her.
Another oddity – this sentence was out of context and time. It sounded like a phrase someone with a purpose would say, someone out of a back room full of candle light and hope.
No, she thought, this is wrong, but another wave washed her upon another shore; and she was a child again, and there were no worries in her heart. The world retreated to simplicities: laughter, a smile, a beam of sunlight. She forgot about the voice, felt leaves brushing over her face, over her arm, slightly stinging, but then, maybe some of the leaves were nettles. and there was nothing to worry about. It might be her sister, playing a prank.
But the voice came back, somber and soft and so not like her father, and it was then that she understood that she was dreaming, that she was bleeding reality with tears she could not cry, and that nothing, nothing was right.
"And I will set us both free…"
The word of freedom dragged at her senses, to bring her memories of a golden boy of summer, haggard in the shadows, glorious in the morning, but that was just a ghost of another kind and there was no truth in a dream.
She was adrift as her world turned to a tantrum.
The sound of angry shouting, slaps, screams, the clank of wood on wood, another, a weirder part of a dream, as everything that had been golden turned to black.
The bed she was lying on shook as something crashed against it, and more snarls, and more crying invaded her world. Something within her told her that she should be afraid, but the haze was too thick, like syrup – another memory from a long time ago – and her thoughts were too frayed and fractured to hold true.
Eternities passed in the twinkle of an eye, between dreams and questions, and then, suddenly, she felt hands on her shoulders, and shaking, almost desperate shaking, and a frantic voice calling her name.
She knew the voice, and her hazed mind readily supplied haphazard images – names, faces, but all meant nothing – but she could not respond.
A swear followed, an ugly curse that should have made a proper lady blush with shame, but she was Jondrette, she was Thénardier, and they knew everything about curses.
And then she was seized, and carried, and again, the colorful round dance turned into merciful black.
"Éponine."
Slowly, she was drifting back to the surface, out of dreams that made no sense to her, and took her first breath that felt like her own air again.
"Éponine."
The voice was persistent, the pull soft, but finally irresistible.
"Éponine, wake up, damn it!"
Again, hands on her shoulder. Again, shaking.
I will set you free….
She shot up and opened her eyes.
At first, the glare of the sun through the windows was unbearable, and she squinted, feeling tears shooting in her eyes at its brightness, but then, tears of shame would almost immediately have followed because she did not cry, would not cry, no matter what happened.
Don't ever look back.
She took two deep breaths to calm herself, before – this time better prepared – she reopened her eyes and shielded them against the sun, assessing her surroundings with a thoughtful gaze.
She was back, home, in her room in the Gorbeau house, but she had never remembered the light through the small, dirty, smeary window to be so bright. The hands on her shoulder belonged to a slightly disheveled looking Montparnasse, who was actually regarding her with concern burning in his eyes.
For a brief moment, she felt reminded of a gamin, who had tried to teach her the rules of the streets, tried to adapt her to the more horrifying parts of it, years back. She had not seen this boy for a long, long time and wondered what had made him resurface in this moment. But the expression, the memory, vanished in the blink of an eye, like a reflection on glittering water that was gone with a soft breeze blowing over the surface. And all she saw was the man she knew.
"Finally," he said, while she realized, that to the other side, hunched on her side of the bed, was Azelma, huddled together, nervously biting her thumbnail and regarding her with wide, fearful eyes. "I thought I would have to fetch a bucket of water."
"You still might," Éponine answered, wondering at how rough, how ungroomed her voice sounded, as if from disuse or long screaming. Her world was still spinning, and it was difficult to sort her thoughts, as if part of her were still caught in the strange, vivid dreams that she had experienced. A bucket of water might help with that.
Also, she felt slightly sick. A bucket might come in handy in any case.
Montparnasse nodded to Azelma, and the girl indeed did get up, her silent steps leading her out of the room into the kitchen.
Eponine took the welcome break to desperately try and piece together her thoughts.
Remembrance came back slowly, and in fragments unnumbered.
Being caught. The man. Fighting back. Darkness. Dreams.
And all the things in between.
The question of what had been real and what had been a dream came up immediately and absolutely inevitably. As nausea picked up, she raised her hand to her head, trying to soothe the pounding and calm herself. There was a dreadful taste in her mouth.
"What… happened?" she asked with effort, and Montparnasse shrugged, an attempt at nonchalance that she did not buy. There was sweat on his face, and he was sporting what would soon be a black eye. His coat was torn at the lapels and a trickle of blood was flowing from somewhere behind his red ear into his collar, but for once Montparnasse did not seem to mind.
Eponine dimly remembered that there had been a fight.
"I told you he was bad company, Éponine. Should have stayed away from him."
Again, his slightly strange way of reaction.
"You know him."
"We may have crossed paths," he admitted off-handedly. "Knives even, on occasion."
Éponine took in his disheveled appearance and felt something akin to dismay. This was her doing – or rather, her captor's – there was no doubt of it.
The revelation hit her like a blazing arrow, bright and cruel and merciless in its clarity. Montparnasse had come for her. Of all the people she knew, of all the outcomes this venture could have had – she had been saved by the man she would not have thought capable of such a deed.
She had no idea what to make of this.
"Such as today," she finally prompted, without needing any confirmation in the venture. Her voice was still rough, but she could hear an odd ring to it that seemed to have come out of nowhere.
"He got away though." He made light of the comment with a shrug and a smile. Nonchalance clung to Montparnasse like a second skin, and everything she said slipped of his shield like water off freshly oiled leather. He had turned untouchable in the passing of time.
But Éponine knew everything about debts. Through her pounding headache, the swirling images of light, she tried to focus on his face, felt another wave of nausea rolling in inevitably.
"Thank you for getting me out," she said. "That would have ended badly without you showing. I owe you."
His body uncurled from his previously tense stance with all the languidness and grace of a cat, and he slightly tipped back his head as if to observe her from a slightly fairer edge, his green eyes twinkling in almost a jest.
"Don't you forget it," he said, and another would have taken it as a joke, a lighthearted remark that actually carried a notion of 'it was a pleasure' or 'don't think anything of it' with it, but Éponine knew him well. For all that was standing between them, they were no strangers to the gifts of favors, and she wondered what this one would cost her.
But then Azelma returned, with her bowl of water, and placed it next to Éponine, crouching at her side with worry, watching her movements with large eyes.
"You are not well," she said softly, voice full of worry, and Éponine would have nodded, had she not feared that this would enhance the nausea to unbearable heights; that it would not call forth the dizziness that at the moment was lurking like a beast in the shadows of the darker recesses of her mind.
"I'll live," she said, squeezing her eyes shut to chase away the blurring images and asked the question that she dreaded. "How did you find me?"
"Montparnasse knew," Azelma replied, and Éponine heard splashing, a squishing sound that told her that Azelma was probably wetting a cloth, but all the sound did was remind her of the uproar in her stomach, and in response to what had been actually an answer to a question, she snapped irritably.
"Stop that!"
Azelma fell silent at once.
"I had a suspicion," Montparnasse answered. "I told you I have seen the man before. He's been around that market for longer than one might think – he's good at blending with the crowd. I knew some of his haunts, though."
Éponine checked herself just in time not to bob her head and answered with a noncommittal noise that she hoped was affirmative. Even though she felt more awake, it seemed this only served to show her how abysmal she felt.
"I'm glad…," she managed with growing difficulty. "That's a dreadful man."
"What happened?"
Montparnasse's question was just slightly too light to be honest. There was a threatening note hidden deeply in the words, and for a moment she wondered how much he still considered her his – or, at least, not someone else's.
Éponine shied away from going back to the darkness that clouded the last hours. She remembered whispers, and fleeting touches, but clearer memory would not be pried from the abyss, and for a moment, she was grateful for it.
"Don't know," she said. "He must have given me something."
Another roll of nausea hit her, as her words prompted forth half-images… cold metal against her lips, and that whisper, drink, child, drink some more, and she did, because she could not breathe and needed air. Something running down her throat with dreadful taste, burning and soothing, and every swallow….
And then, all of a sudden, it was enough, and she was bowing over the bowl that Azelma held, retching, and heaving, and emptying what little she had had in her stomach into the cracked porcelain. Her sister's hand carefully wove itself through her hair, and she hummed a soft song, no words, barely perceptible, but still soothing. It was a memory of a childhood long ago.
The fit lasted longer than she would have thought. Her stomach cramped, long having nothing to give any more, and dizziness was unbearable. Éponine clenched her hands into the sheets and tried to regain composure, but only to limited avail. Montparnasse's hands on her shoulder forced her back from the bowl, finally, back onto the bed, and the dry-heaving receded slightly, but the nausea did not, and neither did the disorientation.
Her body was rebelling, both against what she had been given and what she had experienced. Once more, Montparnasse's green eyes were on her, and there was a fraction of the worry that Éponine herself felt as well.
Rumor had it that there were nasty things on the streets. Mixtures that could be given that took your spirits away, that let you forget who you were, that brought upon you the vice that was cholera. Much of it Éponine had always dismissed as fearful fancy, but now that she was lying in her bed, her stomach cramping painfully and her senses in uproar, all of this did not seem as unrealistic as that.
Fear gripped her as she realized she had no idea what she could do. One was prey to those sicknesses like one was prey to the seasons. They lived in a world where something like medicine was akin to magic, spoken about but never perceived. What they could not withstand on their own would kill them.
Like a bright blaze she remembered that this was not true anymore. Not to her, at least.
She had given a promise and received something in return.
Maybe it was time to collect a favor.
"Montparnasse…?" she whispered. "Can you do me a favor?"
"Another one?" His cocksure self was back, shining through his voice, hardly betraying effort. "You're becoming quite indebted there, are you?"
She ignored it for the moment – another thing on the long list of things to be sorted out later – and forced further words out against the nausea.
"Can you bring me to Rue des Grés?"
"Rue des Grés?" Montparnasse laughed. "What would you want there?"
"Collect a favor." For some reason she could hardly explain, Éponine was not prepared to delve into details there. In all honesty, she felt no inclination to tell Montparnasse how close she had come to the student group that was meeting in the Café Musain planning and dreaming at a new world. Neither did she fancy herself being laughed at – which would have been his most predictable reaction – nor would she, with all his dubiousness, want him to know at the moment at all. One had to remember that she was in his debt and this should be her debt alone. "Marius' friends," she explained, as he offered nothing. "There's a doctor among them."
"Ah," Montparnasse nodded, surprisingly. "Good thinking, 'Ponine."
She heard him shuffle, and a moment later, his arm was around her and he pulled her to her feet. Her stomach protested, her knees threatened to give out on her, but Montparnasse held firm.
Only moments later, for the second time in three days, Éponine was dragged through the Paris streets, half-conscious and hurt.
Towards the Musain.
The church bells across Paris had already struck the sixth hour when finally they reached the house in the Rue de l'Homme Armée. Marius, of course, if given the opportunity, would have left much earlier, but Combeferre had been adamant about not leaving the headquarters of Le Globe before they had managed to piece together at least a decent sort of newspaper for tomorrow's edition.
Combeferre had quite obviously turned into a gentler, yet likewise unmerciful copy of Madame de Cambout, for he showed the same dedication and accuracy in his judgments. On the other hand, given the fact that many of the articles had undergone editing already, he often seemed to come to quite different conclusions.
Only when Chevalier and Rodrigues had ensured them that they could deal with the remaining smaller issues on their own, had he relented, and now they were moving up the stairs towards the third floor, where, if Cosette's letter was anything to go by, he should expect the new temporary residence of the Fauchelevents.
They had walked in circles and turns on coming here, passing through the passage that Éponine had shown them two days before and then walked between the crowds, alternating thickly crowded streets and empty areas as methodically as only Combeferre would.
There was reasonable hope that they had not been followed when at last they entered the building.
Between the stories, there was always a landing, slightly blind windows going out on the street, and on the landing between the second and third floor, Combeferre stopped and leaned against a windowsill.
"I will wait here, if you don't mind," he offered, and Marius understood that it was the man's manner of giving him privacy with Cosette. He thanked him and moved further up the stairs, as he saw Combeferre taking a pipe out of his pocket – it had been among the things they had retrieved from his apartment on their way back from Le Globe together with a set of fresh clothes and three books of various nature – and lighting it, as he took his place at the windowsill and gazed out onto the street in thought.
And then, Marius was practically alone.
He would have never thought that a door could actually look threatening.
But he had come here for a reason, and taking a deep breath, heart hammering in his chest, he stepped up to the entrance to the Fauchelevent apartment and knocked.
For a long moment, nothing happened, and he wondered if he had misjudged the place, or if the mere possibility of him making an appearance had chased them away, but then, finally, the door opened to reveal the somber face of Monsieur Fauchelevent, his eyes alight with suspicion.
Marius cleared his throat.
"Monsieur," he began. "I hope you will forgive my intrusion but…"
"How did you find us here?"
His words cut off his speech, but they were not harsh, at least not overly so. Rather, the frown on the man's face made him seem preoccupied and worried. Still, being interrupted temporarily confused Marius, but taking a deep breath he soon found his spirit again.
"Well… your daughter, Monsieur," he responded finally, opting for truth. "She left me a note."
He wondered if he should produce the note, a strange sort of invitation card for an event that was not even one, but somehow Fauchelevent did not seem to be the person paying attention to that sort of thing. Rather, the man was wondering for a moment, and Marius felt himself being under intense scrutiny once more before he finally nodded.
"Did she then?" he asked. Marius, for lack of an alternative, nodded.
"Yes, Monsieur," he confirmed. "I… was wondering… if I could maybe see her."
Fauchelevent thoughtfully scratched his chin. He looked slightly tired, dressed in a casual chemise and waistcoat only, his curly hair mussed and not as pristine as when Marius had first seen him.
He seemed reluctant to admit him, but he did not reject the request right away. Again, he looked at the young man, though Marius could not shake the impression that he was hardly even seeing him. Finally, he seemed to come to a decision and nodded.
"She's not well," he warned. "I will ask her first."
And the door closed into Marius' face.
The baron's son gave a quick glance back to Combeferre, but his friend had not even turned and was staring out of the window lost in his own thoughts, brow slightly furrowed, the glow of his pipe a tiny source of light in the gloom.
It took a moment, but, finally, Fauchelevent returned and opened the door slightly wider for Marius to enter.
"She's not well," he repeated, as if for emphasis, and Marius nodded, frightfully wondering what could have happened between two days ago and now, that would have changed Cosette's state of mind so profoundly.
The room he was admitted to was less beautifully furnished than the place he had had a quick glimpse of in Rue Plumet, but on second glance, this was rather less for lack of furniture, but for lack of all the small trinkets and tokens that made the room of a lady a home. While the Rue Plumet chamber had hosted a spectacular amount of memorabilia – images of pressed plants, drawings, tiny figurines – this place was surprisingly bare of it, even though the furniture was of the same good quality.
Cosette was sitting at a writing table staring out of a window.
Marius would not have needed Fauchelevent's indication to see that indeed not all was well with his beloved. Her naturally light complexion had turned to a pallor usually attributed to fright or lack of sleep, and the dark circles under her eyes rather indicated an excess of the latter. Her fingers were restless and fiddling, and when she turned towards him, the smile on her lips did not reach her blue, wide eyes, for all she obviously tried.
"Marius," she greeted him, but even her voice was off-kilter, not quite the joyful, if slightly nervous triller he had heard before, but rather shrill in its failing attempt at exuberance. "I see you have found me."
He knew he should reply something polite, something noncommittal or even witty. His education helpfully supplied a dozen clever phrases, but all that he could think of was:
"What happened to you?"
She seemed to be slightly taken aback at that statement, for her smile vanished for a moment, before she forced it back onto her face with visible effort.
"Nothing, Marius. I'm… quite fine."
He shook his head in worry.
"No," he said, before his thoughts could get the better of him. "You're not."
As impolite as the statement was, it did at least provoke a reaction that was better than the eerie smile she had been faking, for the jolly expression vanished from her face altogether, and she turned to the window in an almost brusque moment.
Marius first thought that it was to reprimand him for his impoliteness – which was indeed supreme – but then he saw to his horror, that her eyes were glistening and she was blinking a trifle too quickly.
He wracked his memory for things that could have called this forth, for things he could say, but his memory and experience of previous occurrences did not serve him well in his respect. Utterly at loss, he searched for an explanation of her state of mind as well as a way to lift her spirits.
"Mademoiselle… no, Cosette, I… if this is… I am so sorry you had to leave your home to come here… and even more sorry if it was my doing. If I could undo the damage I have…"
"This has nothing to do with you," she said, and then with a slight hitch in her voice, "or with us."
"Then Mademoiselle, tell me. Please tell me!" He spoke without even thinking, out of pure impulse. Seeing those blue eyes filled with tears was exquisite pain and he could not bear it.
But Cosette bowed her head and shook it softly.
"No, Monsieur. My worries are my own. I… would not burden you with it."
For a moment, he felt a side of him agreeing. He did not want this. He did not know how to deal with it. Cosette was a kindhearted dream, a beam of light in his existence, the most beautiful flower of the garden. She inspired the song of the nightingale… she called forth the dawn in the morning.
But quite apparently, she was also more.
"Monsieur…," she began to speak again before he had found his voice, and he realized that she was looking at him again, with a strange sort of desperation in her eyes. "Marius… do you ever… dream?"
"Of course, I do," he replied without hesitation. "Of so many things… and of you, so often, lately." He attempted a smile that was echoed on her face, heartbreaking and clear and a memory of the girl in the garden.
"My dreams were often of you as well, Marius," she admitted softly, shaking her head as if remembering an older fancy. "Such beautiful dreams they were…" Her hand went to her face, shielding her eyes for the moment. "But now my dreams are such things of darkness…," she continued, voice softer and slightly hitching. "So dark…"
"You have been unsettled by all this excitement," Marius said, glad that he found an explanation to her behavior and sadness. A nightmare was an unsettling thing, especially if vivid, and he would be lying, would he say that his own dreams had not been haunted by the gaunt face of their attacker. But ultimately, nightmares were not very threatening. "It will pass, Cosette, I'm sure of it. It is nothing but an echo of what happened, and that will pass with time." He took a few steps towards her, until he was standing right in front of Cosette, looking down into her pale face with fondness.
But she shook her head and held his gaze, blue eyes slightly less tormented, but still full of tears.
"I am not sure it is he who haunts me, Marius," she said. "I see such strange things… Things I cannot forget. Like from a story…," She shook her head again, slowly. "And I am afraid."
A bold admittance, in the end, but this was something that Marius could battle.
"There is no need for this," he said softly and dared to raise a hand to her blonde curls, passing through them with care and reverence. "No need for fright." He let his hand drop onto her shoulder, had his other hand joining on the other, a steadying hold that should stop her from falling. "I'm here. Your father is here. There is nothing that will happen to you."
She frowned softly, but something in her eyes was giving way, and Marius held on to it in the hope to see a glimpse of the Cosette he knew resurfacing. His fingers ran over her shoulders carefully, feeling bone and warmth under the fabric of her dress.
"Cosette…," he whispered. "There is nothing to fear."
She looked up to him, and then, with a deep breath, took a step closer, almost touching him.
The effect was overwhelming. He could feel her warmth, her breath against his neck, vivid proof of her presence even if his eyes had been closed instead of firmly fixed on her blue ones. His hands found their way from her shoulders to her back, and before he knew what he was doing, he had enfolded her in an embrace, her face pressed against his chest, her arms snaking around to hold him.
It was a moment of breathless wonder, an instant of unexpected bliss after the disconcerting experience of just before. Her breath was huffing against him, and she was so small and slight in his hands. He could have stayed like this forever, just breathing her in, locked in this ultimate awareness of her presence.
"Give me beautiful dreams, Marius." Her voice was barely heard over the pounding of his heart, over his valiant attempts to keep his breathing steady. "Give me beautiful dreams to forget the dark ones."
Marius dared a kiss into her mass of golden curls and wondered how one should do this, if not like this, locked in an embrace, abandoned in each other, and hoped, with all that was in him, that it would be enough.